This week in grade 1 we are practicing creating "les belles phrases" using "je vois", "je mange", "je porte", and our fall vocabulary. We started practicing on our desks (because it's SO much fun, and doesn't waste paper!):

**Some desks needed a bit of extra love afterwards to get them clean. I use dish soap and water in a spray bottle. It comes off nicely :)

One of my new centres is "les belles phrases" using the laminated cards that I made. Here are some pictures of them at work:

I am also reading the simple reader that I made to go with the games. I read it to them every few days, and they repeat each page after I read it to practice the sentence starters and the fall vocabulary. I have been using the belles phrases cards in a centre with me, so that I can introduce the centre and make sure that they understand the order of the cards. While they are doing this, my other students are doing similar fall centres.

In between we also started practicing prepositions. I am SO excited to start mixing them together to create even longer sentences.. hopefully next week :) I have been reading the preposition book to them and we have been singing the song to start learning the words.

While my grade 1s are practicing this, my grade 2s are working on the harder fall centres. They are working on creating sentences in "bang", instead of simply identifying the vocabulary (as the grade 1s do). What are you up to this week? Can you believe Friday is Halloween?!?!

This week in grade 1, we tried our hand at "dwriting" - drawing and writing combined! I gave my students small pictures of classroom objects, numbers, "il y a" sentence starter, and blank squares (for them to give a colour). In partners, they made sentences. Then they shared them with the class.

After this I gave them the same sheet and they repeated the activity independently in their journals! They were so excited by the amount of sentences they were able to "dwrite", and happily read them to me as they finished them. We had so much fun with this!

This week we made our mini books! Literally... I photocopied them 4/page so we had teeny tiny books! This was a selling point for my grade 1s, as they thought mini books were very exciting. The mini books followed the same pattern as the book I have read to them for the past few weeks. We practiced the vocabulary many different ways before I had them write their own book.

The dot at the end of each sentence is for the colour: "Dans ma salle de classe, il y a 4 gommes roses", "Dans ma salle de classe il y a 3 crayons oranges".

So... I came back from Thanksgiving weekend to find my classroom covered in mouse droppings. We had a few visitors move into our hallway of the school!!!

Some of my students wrote this into their books! They thought it was quite funny! Technically, it was in our classroom...

My students are REALLY excited to read their books to some of the older French Immersion students at our school!

We looked at different pictures of polluted water, and then discussed why polluted water is a problem for people, animals, and the environment. Then I filled an empty orange juice container with water. We looked through the recycling, garbage, and compost bins and talked about how different things could cause problems if they were found floating in water in the environment. Then we added them to the orange juice container. We talked about oil spills and I poured some cooking oil into the orange juice container. We looked at how it stayed at the top of the water, and talked about what might happen if a bird landed on the water. Then I dipped some feathers into the water so they could see how the oil affects the feathers. Once we had everything mixed into the orange juice container, they drew their observations (and smelled the container!). We will be observing the container once a week. **If you are doing this activity, use a container that you are happy to get rid of once you're done with the experiment. It will smell AWFUL after a few weeks and you won't want to spend any time scrubbing your container clean. Then we did a Thanksgiving craft. We brainstormed all the things that we are thankful for as a class. Then I gave them each a paper plate. They divided the paper plate into sections and drew the things they were thankful for.

We also continued to practice our fall vocabulary! Here is our matching centre:

Hope you had a great week! Happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadians out there!

In grade 1, we have been learning about classroom objects. I read this book to them:

After having read it to them many times over the past few weeks, they are familiar with the pattern in the book. When I read it, I have them count the objects with me, and also repeat the object after me: "Dans ma salle de classe il y a 6 livres. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 livres".

When I pulled small groups during these past few weeks, I practiced the classroom vocabulary with them using different games. Here is "bug in a rug":

Then we started making up our own sentences to match the pattern in the book. I write "il y a", and then ask "combien?" and a student tells me a number. Then a second student tells me an object, and we read the whole sentence together as a class.

After having done it together as a class a few times, I gave them their own mini white boards and they drew the sentences at the same time, using my whiteboard as a model.

Then I sent them back to their desks and they wrote the sentences on their desks. After writing/drawing them, we took a minute and a few students shared their sentences with the class.

Once we had practiced that for a few days and they had the hang of it, we added colours!

Next week my students will be making their own versions of the books, showing me what they have learned with numbers and classroom objects vocabulary. If they are able to, they can also extend it to add colours!

Note: If their desks have dirt/food/residue on them, then the dry erase markers will leave some colour on the desks. I use a spray bottle with dish soap and water, spray and let it sit for a minute. It will wipe right off with paper towel!

This week in grade 2 we continued to investigate air! We practiced our "Monsieur le vent!" poem.

We did an experiment with air. I gave them a bucket of small items and two rulers. In small groups, they put the rulers on their desks and guessed how many breaths it would take to blow an item from one ruler to the other. They found it really fun! We worked on making predictions, and we talked about their observations. What did they notice about the objects? Which objects were easier to move? Which ones took the most breaths?

Then we made wind snakes! They decorated the spirals, and then cut them out and tied ribbon around the inside tip. Then we went outside and explored what happened with the wind. We also made our own wind by running with the wind snakes!

This week in grade 1 we talked about the changes that we see in the fall. We brainstormed in small groups and shared our thoughts as a whole class. Then we sorted images together! We will be using the images from the sort as discussion prompts as well. There is so much to do with them!

We practiced our weekly poem "C'est l'automne".

We continued to practice our weather vocabulary! We played a fly swatter game all together. I said the weather (e.g. "il fait du soleil") and then the first student to swat the correct image got another turn. The other student passed their fly swatter along to the next person. They thought it was so fun, especially the boys! After we have practiced it well, it will turn into a Daily 5 centre that they can play in small groups.

I also added this matching game to our Daily 5 word work centres.

What did you do with your students this week? I'd love to hear about it!